


standing out in the cold

by plinys



Category: DC's Legends of Tomorrow (TV)
Genre: 5 Times, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-11-27
Updated: 2017-11-27
Packaged: 2019-02-07 11:27:34
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,446
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12840186
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/plinys/pseuds/plinys
Summary: He's not Mick's Len. Not really, but he's a Len and that should count for something. Shouldn't it?





	standing out in the cold

**Author's Note:**

  * For [scofieldsnarts](https://archiveofourown.org/users/scofieldsnarts/gifts).



> HAPPY BIRTHDAY STEF!!! (i hope you enjoy my take on the little prompt you gave me earlier today, i sort of ran wild with it)

1

It’s accidental.

Time having a way of working itself out, a level seven anachronism that the rest of the team wants to tackle, and Mick doesn’t think much of it. He doesn’t think much of anything anymore. It’s easier this way. Don’t think, just act. The way everyone always wrote him out to be. 

So when they’re there, at an ice skating rink, trying to track dome some missing vikings, it almost slips past his notice. Until it doesn’t, until in between the glittering helmet of their intended target, something clicks in the back of his foggy head.

Giving him the sort of clarity that he hasn’t had in days, months, years.

Since Len-

Nate is saying something, irrelevant and unimportant, but it doesn’t matter because he can see a little girl out on the ice, no more than six, twirling around, her golden skirt fanning around her the faster she goes, her skates - shiney and new, stolen from the skate shop on the nice side of the city - glittering against the ice. 

He knew.

Somewhere in the back of his head, he knew that there was a risk of this. That going back to Central City always posed a risk, but it’s something else entirely. 

Because there lingering on the edge of the skating rink, watching the same little girl that Mick can barely seem to tear his eyes away from is a man barely past twenty, in a worn out grey parka and a beanie that doesn’t belong to him.

There’s a moment there.

A second where Mick is noticed, because of course he is - Len is nothing if not attentive to Lisa, and to the people that might be watching her. 

He doesn’t recognize him. Why would he? The Mick that this Len knows is years younger, resting at their safe house, recovering from their latest heist, not standing across from him in a fabricated police uniform. 

“Lisa,” this Len - this younger version of the man Mick lost - calls out, “Time to head home.” 

Though his eyes never leave Mick’s, and in the end it is Mick that turns away, finally tunes back into whatever terrible plan Nate had managed to come up with in the moments where he wasn’t paying attention. 

If later that night when it’s all said and done he pours out a second glass, nobody says anything or even notices, after all what is Mick without a drink in hand. 

 

2

It’s a team up, a mission to save all the worlds, or maybe just to save the Flash’s wedding. 

Skirt’s back, and the Arrow, and his whole team, and a bunch of other people that Mick barely even cares about. He wants to be back on the ship, back doing the familiar, not any of this. 

Especially not when a man that’s not his Len, but wears the same face, speaks with the same drawl, meets his eyes and has the nerve to introduce himself.

It’s another world.

Filled with different people. 

And later that damned speedster kid will try to explain that alternate universe’s mean that relationships change and sometimes people don’t exist and that this is perfectly normal. 

Doesn’t mean that it doesn’t hurt, when he grumbles, “Mick Rory,” in reply, and gets not even the smallest flicker of recognition. 

  
  


3

This timeline doesn’t exist. If the Legends have anything to say about it, it won’t exist in approximately an hour.

But there’s a moment where it does, and there’s a look in Sara’s eyes that he’s not going to touch on, because touching on it means acknowledging what it means. And Mick Rory has never been the type to acknowledge what things means. Never the type to sort through his feelings.

There had been therapists once, ones that he ignored, written off all their words as nonsense and bullshit and excuses to explain the demons in his head.

He’s sure they’d call this a poor coping mechanism.

But he can’t help it, because Len is right there. Real and alive, and in a timeline that’s going to die, and he’s already asked they can’t bring him on the ship. It won’t work, it won’t last, when the timeline resets itself he’ll disappear, but they have a moment.

An hour.

Len looks at him with revenant eyes, like he’s seeing a ghost, and Mick knows his own must look the same. He’s seen plenty of ghosts, ghosts of the very same man, the one that’s staring into his own eyes. 

“You died,” this Len says. 

Mick doesn’t echo the words even though he could. 

Doesn’t admit how many times that he wish he had. 

That he would have, if it meant Len was still alive. 

Instead he says, “I’m not dead yet,” and kisses a man that’s not quite his Len, but is the closest he’s ever going to get. 

Len kisses him back, just as desperate, hands holding Mick into place as though Mick was the one who was going to slip away. As though his timeline was the one falling to ash and ruin around them, a world that’s going to burn out before Mick has a chance to right all the wrongs that have plagued him for far too long. 

Though here and now it doesn’t matter. 

An hour isn’t enough to make up for all the time they’ve lost, but it’s a start. 

Mick pushes him back onto the countertop of a safehouse that never belonged to them, brings his hands down to fumble with the zipper of Len’s jeans. He intends to make the most out of it. 

  
  


4

He pins a medal of valor on Mick’s chest, matching ones for the rest of the Legends, a thank you for saving a city on an Earth that doesn’t even belong to them. 

His hands linger there on Mick’s chest for a moment, straightening the lapels of his jacket, the light glinting off the golden band around his finger. The reminder of  _ husband  _ he mentioned before, back when they were saving his life, coming back too suddenly to Mick. 

Almost too good to be true. A world where they got their happy ending. Where they’re better people. 

The sort of people that share a familiar smile during an award ceremony. 

“You look just like him,” Mayor Snart says, under his breath, private so only Mick can hear. 

“You too.” 

 

5

He steals the jumpship, makes it halfway through space before a message comes in from the team, not disapproving not really, but worried. Most of them understand. The captain at least does. Even if the newbies might not get it. 

He’s not about to explain it to them.

Not when it’s the anniversary, and even Gideon had reported the fact to him out with a heavy tone. 

So he sets a course for 2017. 

For the time that they belong to now.

Cloaks the ship in the back among the headstones that are so worn that nobody visits them anymore or even remembers the names that used to adorn their surfaces, and straightens his jacket. He would have worn black, but a voice like Len’s in his head told him that sticking to tradition had never been for them. 

He walks a familiar path to a headstone simple and flat to the ground, bought with earned money rather than stolen, a small tribute to a man who deserved so much more. 

Who deserved a goddamned statue built in his own honor. 

Who deserved to still be living. 

Who deserved - “Mick.”

Lisa’s voice is unexpected but not unwelcomed, there’s a heaviness to it, she’s been crying, and he knows damn well that if she starts he’s going to join her. 

Len would hate to see them this way. 

Two sorry excuses for human beings sharing a bottle of something strong, to celebrate a day that never was official, not legally. It couldn’t have been, even when the law was changed, there was only so much one could get holding a county clerk up at gunpoint and asking them to say the right words. 

But still it counted. 

It had to count for something. 

“I brought sake,” Lisa says, holding up the bottle for him to inspect. 

“Twenty years is China,” he replies, taking the bottle anyways. 

She grins at him, the only way a  _ little sister  _ can. 

“Figured it was close enough. Lenny would’ve complained.” 

“Yeah,” Mick agrees, taking a long drink, “He would have.” 

  
  


\+ 1

There’s an anachronism, some fool trying to steal the Mona Lisa right off Leonardo da Vinci’s easel. 

A level eight.

Who smiles at Mick when the ship lands, and simply says, “It took you long enough.” 


End file.
